


Ozymandias

by nvzblgrrl



Category: Doctor Who, Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Time Lady Clara, Time Lord Clara
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-05
Updated: 2016-01-05
Packaged: 2018-05-11 21:08:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 650
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5642059
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nvzblgrrl/pseuds/nvzblgrrl





	Ozymandias

I had looked into the Untempered Schism. I had known this moment was coming. You, me, and a desolate stretch of Type 40 TARDISes. Destiny or something more base?

  
It’s all the same in the end.

  
You, me, and the universe at our fingertips.

  
It was hard to believe in a random universe when your existence was hinged on the existence of one human doing something very heroic, very brave, and very, very stupid.

  
It was hard to feel real when you were a mere reflection of a girl who shattered herself across a Time Lord’s timeline in the name of… what, love? A hundred thousand mirrors reflecting different sides of the original subject without end, add infimum, frozen in a split second and then shattered across the universe. All likely ignorant of what they really were.

  
But unlike them, I was a Time Lord. I could feel the time-lines, the tangle of existence all sourcing from that one humble root, itching against my mind. Sometimes, I could even taste the memories of the mes-that-weren’t.

  
And I could feel every single second of Clara loving someone who she could never hope to touch.

  
“Doctor.”

  
And that’s how I knew Who you were. Not just a classmate. Not just a fellow master of time and space. You were important. Precious. Worth protecting.

  
“Doctor.”

  
Second hand sentiment from a girl who should have known better. The few degrees of differentiation between she and me don’t seem like nearly enough.

  
But I am a Time Lord. Aloofness is a trained skill. I can look down my nose at anyone. Even the Doctor.

  
“Yes, what is it?”

  
You turned, everything about you screaming defensiveness. Caught in the act of theft with a girl who called you ‘Grandfather’. So many broken rules.

  
“You’re about to make a very big mistake.”

  
And without me, you would be nothing. It would take merely one alarm. One simple act in accordance with everything I’ve ever been taught. I would be alone in the universe. Unique. Inimitable. Myself.

  
It would be easy. So very, very easy.

  
“Take the next one over. She’s what you’re looking for.” I said, breaking the silence I’d allowed to stretch out for far too long.

  
I don’t believe in easy. I don’t believe in comfortable. I believe in right.

  
Never cruel. Never cowardly.

  
A gift from Clara. The me that isn’t me and is my mother and my sister and a ghost all at once.

  
You blinked. For a moment in time, I am unique in your mind. It will pass. Clara has scattered herself among the cosmos and in that storm of leaves, all brown haired and brown eyed with the same exact face, and I will be just the first to strike you full in the face. Once you step into that wider universe, I will cease to exist in your mind.

  
But I will have still thrown the rock.

  
And those ripples will spread.

  
The miracles of time travel. Revealing that the entire universe runs on a chain of coincidences and glitches occasionally bolstered by deliberate moves.

  
“What are you waiting for?” I asked. “Run, you clever boy. Run and remember.”

  
You listen – a rare occurrence, a hundred thousand lives not mine tell me – and disappear into the only TARDIS that matters, leaving me behind by myself in a hall of ancient time machines slated for death.

  
Clara would have felt lost. Alone. Without you, she is a leaf adrift without wind.

  
I am not Clara Oswin Oswald. I am not human. I am a Time Lord. And I make my own path.

  
I choose the TARDIS you would have taken for yourself and dematerialize, even as less friendly company arrives to stop me.

  
My name is Ozymandias. Look upon my works, ye mighty, ye tyrants, and all you evil creatures that crawl in the corners of the universe, and despair.


End file.
